The Pitchblack Games guys, Warren Weems and John Kennison, held their second stream offering another infodump and Q&A for Prime Battle For Dominus. I’ll include a link to the 30 minutes video in the read more section if you’re interested in watching the whole thing as I have done, but for those simply interested in the juicy details you can read my notes below.
[0:00-8:30] Quick looks at scenery.
The game appears to be quite open and pretty with varying scifi settings from jungle to crystalline. 11 different planets.  No mobs were in the game at all so it was extremely empty and even bland, but the idea is there. Terms like “world boss”, “6-man instance” and “raid” were thrown around. I’m interested in how open-world PvP is incorporates into these planets. I assume at least 1 planet is reserved for each of the three factions as a starting area, but are the rest purely up for grabs?
[10:00] Alliances ~ Macro Guilds.
This caters perfectly to me. I have a group of friends that I enjoy playing games with and have for nearly five years. Unfortunately, we’re a smaller group. Alliances acting as macro guilds would allow for us to have the resources of a larger guild while maintaining our autonomy. There will be visible rosters for the whole alliance and ways for you to branch out and incorporate members of other guilds within the alliance into your own circle of friends. In other words, if you’re like us and can only get 5-6 people on but need 10 people to do something you’ll be able to grab a few more from the alliance.
[12:30] Guild Leader Channel
This feature creates a channel only available to leaders of guilds (5 members+) to coordinate. I’ve participated in custom channels like this where prominent alliance leaders and guild members communicate. It really does improve the community when your guild leaders can get your guild into the action with other guilds not necessarily in your alliance.
[22:48] Bounties on players
I thought that this was a nice touch. Not much was said other than it was only on players and not entire guilds. If anyone wants to share additional details with me I would welcome the info.
[23:00] Vehicles “not ready to talk about”
[24:25] Endgame objective: Stop enemy factions from getting the prime element. Further your faction. Get together as a community and beat the other guys.
Compare this with the endgame in so many other games being “get better loot” or “beat the dungeon” and it’s a breath of fresh air. This ‘feel’ is hard to accomplish since many claim this to be their goal yet develop their game in clear contrast.
[25:00] No DAOC relics, but you’ll know who controls bases.
[25:30] Hold bases to facilitate faster mining.
In the first video something that actually made me really interested in Prime was the harvesting. I think it’s important for people to have a tangible method of obtaining materials with a sense of “place” in the world attached to them. Having cities on these bases/platforms that harvest give you a reason to want them.
[26:15] Multiple types of bases with various benefits that serve different purposes relegated to areas of the world they can be set up on.
[27:50] *NEED CLARIFICATION* “snipe kill” vs. “Planned siege” I think the dev misunderstood the question or didn’t explain it well enough. Can bases be attacked -any- time or must a physical vulnerability window be respected? From what I have gathered it’s a very open and free system, but it won’t be easy enough for like one guy to run in and take it.
That’s the gist of the video. I’m really hoping to get more PvP details from their next stream and I hope that they’ll give us some more combat and crafting info. One of my main concerns is how combat will work. They have jet packs and a lot of freedom to move but it looks like a tab targeting system. In the first video I saw melee weapons and my mind jumps to SWG’s use of melee weapons vs. ranged weapons and how both had clear advantages and buffs for your character.
Honestly, I still can’t quite figure out how the whole game will work out. I have this awesome image in my mind of jet packing over walls and a full on blood path of lasers and mayhem everywhere while one faction defends their base harvesting elements they want to maintain control of while the other two factions duke it out to not only kill each other but seize control of the minerals. Seeing ‘arenas’ in the PvP section of the official website unnerves me since instanced pvp like battlegrounds nullifies open-world pvp. Enough rambling, though. Prime is on my radar until Pitchblack gives me a reason to look away.
Catch the video by reading
The game has still done nothing to convince it isn’t just hyperbole.
It’s all very well TALKING about good RvR. Anyone can do that. Paul Barnett did that well. But for a game releasing this year, the videos they’ve shown are decidedly unimpressive. I#d love to be surprised. I really would. But I honestly think this is going to be less fun than Global Agenda (and GA is quite fun in small bursts, but TF2 is obviously better) and far more buggy and featureless.
We’ll see.
If it’s great, I’ll be eating these words. But after so many promises and U-Turns in the MMO world, cynicism is the best approach at the moment.
I can be the king of pessimism and disbelief, but I think saying they’re like Global Agenda, when the honest truth is simply we do not know anything, is equally hyperbole.
My stance is to celebrate a company that is clearly newer yet willing to make (or at least talk about) a game with ideas that I find intriguing and not done in this generation of MMO’s. I like the honesty I see in the videos when they announce a ton of features they will -not- have, yet maintain a direction they want the game to go.
Caution is warranted. We get burned too much. Most of the red flags aren’t present, yet. Some are, like the word “arenas”, but I’ll reserve my cynicism for when it’s deserved.
“equally hyperbole.”
I wasn’t saying it’s like GA game-wise, more that it’s the only really viable point of comparison (i.e. Sci-Fi PvP Shooter with jetpacks; Tabula Rasa not counted since it’s dead) and that I honestly can’t see it being as fun as GA was for a bit (before the illusion of it being a shooter was shattered and the relentless strain on the right index finger grew wearisome.)
And I see where you’re coming from with the honesty, but talk is just that. Until they actually show me something that makes me go “that looks epic,” I’m not getting sucked in anymore (and that’s the same reason why I’m very lukewarm about GW2: all talk, no proof.)
The gameplay sounds more like DAOC to me than GA. GA mimicked team fortress 2. You get into a match, you win or lose, then get into another. Prime looks like open-world territory control. They’ve even given a nod to needing a real reason to participate in PvP beyond “just because”.
All I’m doing right now is watching videos and commenting on what strikes me as interesting. I’ve seen enough to give them my attention.
Don’t get sucked in. That would be foolish and I’d have to point and laugh at anyone that does. You can still appreciate good ideas.
You fight over prime because it’s used to craft the best weapons & armor. Said weapons & armor will eventually decay and need to be replaced, so there should be constant demand.
The main push and direction behind Prime, that they have said and have claimed is everything, is the end-game pvp focused around Dominus (for lack of another example, a zone like the Frontiers in DAoC), and gathering Prime from harvest sites (cities/keeps?) in said Zone. The Prime is supposed to be used for all the best crafting, and more.
The and more part hasn’t been explained at all. Sanya hasn’t been able to answer whether there will be stat caps or not (would be a clear indication of gear treadmill/not gear treadmill), they have stated gear will decay, but not how quickly or slowly, so we don’t know if it will even matter.
Mostly, there just has been zero talk on the actual reason that pvp is the endgame for Prime gathering in Dominus. It could be anything, and any number of reasons would make the game horrible.
All they have told us is that it is 3 factions, and they plan to balance around pvp, and if pve suffers because of it, they will change the pve, not the pvp balances.
So, really, it is completely up in the air at this point. I don’t see a huge reason to get antsy though, because they have stated the game was in production for a long time before releasing info about it… and they are still just giving out bits and pieces at a time. To me that is bad news. If it was as far along as claimed, I’d think there’d be no reason to not just dump the games info in its entirety.
And I know it is horrible to judge people this way, but does the guy on the right strike anyone else as a possible heavy drug user?
The twitching is sketchy. I can’t say it 100% though, cause it may just be jitters from being on camera. I know I hate being in the spotlight like that lol.
Just the first thing that came to mind when watching the first vid. o.0
Unlike most forums, there is actually some amazing discussions going on in the official websites ones.
Very true Gnome, even though all of it is absolute speculation and “what I like/don’t like in MMOs”.
Hard to really discuss the nitty-gritty of a game when you don’t have it. 🙁
Prime is now officially on my radar screen.
If nothing else I like how they come off as just plain guys who really like gaming, not some shouting caffeine overloaded bobbleheads (I refer back to the Warhammer pre-release interview videos)…
@Rawblin (i/r/t “Mostly, there just has been zero talk on the actual reason that pvp is the endgame for Prime gathering in Dominus.”): Now I’m worried I haven’t been clear. Dominus is the primary source of Prime in the galaxy. The element occurs in dribs and drabs elsewhere, but on Dominus you can just pick the stuff up, basically. All three factions need it or they can’t make armor, weapons, and unless I’m badly confused, for the base system (which I admit we have not discussed yet).
The “good” stuff is all crafted, not dropped. So anyone wearing gear made with Prime, using weapons make with Prime, etc, is going to have an advantage.
You know how in some games you have to raid in certain dungeons/arenas to be “competitive”? Here you have to PVP on Dominus to be competitive.
I do know that gear stats matter (see above about driving people to Dominus/crafted gear) but I don’t yet know how it feels – whether or not someone in gear has an edge, or OMGWTHAWESOME. It’s supposed to be in between, but you know what they say about pre-beta supposition.
(If you don’t know what they say… well, short version, supposition and suppository have too much in common.)
Also, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing too loudly at the drug joke 😉 Warren is hands down the most conservative person I’ve ever worked for. Usually I wind up with heavy drinking, strip club visiting, party animals. This time around I’m trying not to even cuss.
I DID see Warren with a Coke, once.
He is kinda fidgety, though 🙂
Regarding Arenas:
It’s been said in the previous podcast and all over the forums that Arenas are not part of the endgame, nor part of the story. They’re what to do until you’re good enough to compete in the endgame (ie, have enough skillpoints to be useful, not just fodder). I see it being much like the BGs of DAoC. They might be instanced, they might not. They’re not what you do when you’re looking for endgame content, though. (From all I’ve heard.)
One thing that is potentially bothersome is they mention that time to maximum level is expected to take less than a month, and later allude to a target of 2 weeks; they state that people might find ways to progress faster.
Two weeks seems like a very abbreviated journey to max level, which in turn makes me wonder if the game leading up to the endgame PvP is somewhat incidental in comparison…
What differentiates this game with Planetside2 and Firefall? Seems like there will be heavy competition in the PVP scifi genre.
Two are FPS shooters, one is not.
@Sanya Weathers: Thanks for stopping by and clearing that up. I’m getting an early DAOC vibe where the gear is involved. You’re replacing gear at a decent rate from use and it comes straight from crafting 99% of the time. Gear was obviously important, but it was accessible and not what everyone cared about when logging on — the fight against your opposing factions (or realms) was at forefront of our minds.
Add in the idea that you have to PvP to get the best stuff, it reminds me of owning keeps gain access to Darkness Falls (which had great stuff). People needed to PvP in order to have the resources at their disposal.
Seems to me that Prime is on course to ‘feel’ the way I like my PvP games to feel.
There is also a lot to infer from what the Devs are saying in these live chats. I know that’s not the best way to take information sometimes, but it is something. For example, when asked about a “relic” system (from Dark Age of Camelot, relics were fought over and gave faction-wide buffs and were something tangible to fight over), Warren said there won’t be relics per se, but you will have a clear indication of which faction is currently winning by seeing what bases they own, and the bonuses those bases give. Now, we can connect that with some info seen on the site:
We know that there will be 7 different kinds of bases (kinds of, not just 7 different bases, as far as we know). We know that bases give bonuses. We also know that there are some RTS elements in regard to building and holding bases. Perhaps building one kind of base, like a refinery, will increase Prime collection, while another kind, like a barracks, will be a sort of battle-field “grave yard (we have had mention that grave yards aren’t necessarily 100% static).” Maybe others could increase damage, mitigation, or healing a la DAoC relics.
Again, this is speculation, but to me waiting on this kind of information isn’t making me distrustful (as I’d have to agree with Keen that these guys just seem so darn down-to-earth. I mean, when was the last time you saw a game NOT throw out a flashy CGI trailer with no game play at all, or hold weekly live streams/chats and know players by name and banter with them? These guys care and their careers are on the line here) but rather is making me excited to find this stuff out.
@Keen I can only hope 😉
now if beta would get started stupid patcher : (
Yeah, I hate how I’ve only known about Prime for like a month but I already hate this wait.. and I’m used to the multi-year MMO waits…
I guess thanks to my MMO mainstays kind of crashing and burning (Hi EVE) that has a large part in the itchy trigger finger syndrome of waiting going on right now.
@Keen
You forgot to mention that Sanya is working for them on your main blurb.
For me personally that’s a HUGE eyebrow raiser, as Sanya is a decidedly non-marketing CM.
Since EA Bioware apparently don’t want my money, because I live in Australia, Prime is on my radar.